Change is very difficult. I was very clear I didn't want to change the strategy from day one. That felt like the wrong time to do it. You have to know an organization. Strategy in itself is all about repetition. And everyone can create a strategy, but can you execute on it?
Francesca Lagerberg leads one of the world's largest accounting networks. Shaping strategy, growth, and transformation across a global business of 50,000 plus people. As CEO of Baker Tilly International and the first British woman to lead a major global accountancy practice, she brings a rare perspective on leadership, scale, and the future of the profession. You might not become the world's greatest user of AI. You may not be the person who's utterly brilliant at every prompt, able to maximize its potential. But if you're not tech curious, that's a bit of an issue. You do need to have that curiosity, that willingness to try, that ability to understand that things are changing, and then use the skills and knowledge and people around you to help fill the gaps that you've got. And that's a growth mindset. How does she speed in sub leading that change, leading through change in an organization? You do need a huge amount of resilience in any business. Doesn't matter its size or its scale, some things are going to go wrong. And how you bounce back from that, how you react to that, is really, really important. You are in knowledge-based industry. So, your product essentially is your people. What you think is going to be the role of AI for people that are selling or that are offering knowledge to the market? I think there's a very strong fusion between humanity and AI. But what it means for a CEO is Hi everybody and welcome back to a new episode of the World Class Leaders. And today I'm very excited to have with us Francesca Lagerberg. Francesca is the CEO of Baker Tilly International, the 10th largest global accounting network with revenues of over 6.5 billion and 50,400 employees. And she's based in London, so welcome, Francesca. Hello, lovely to be with you. So, Francesca, so there are so many things I would like to ask you and probably the most important thing today will be talking and discussing your experience with change given where we are at the moment in the world where change is happening at very fast pace as we all know. But before getting to that, I would like to know something about you. I mean, you lead, as I said, a very large network, so many different people in more than 140 territories. And you were the first woman to hold the role in Baker Tilly. But you came outside. So, you are a kind of an outsider when you join. I think you became a CEO in 2022. Is that correct? So, when you walk in day one, what was your feeling coming like a new person in a such a large company? I think anyone who walks into a new job when they don't know the organization, you're going to have a few little nerves there, aren't you? You're going to be wondering, have I made the right decision? Have they made the right decision?
Right. So, of course you're going to be a little bit unsure about it. Although, I have to say, Baker Tilly was phenomenally welcoming. So, it's a very, very welcoming organization and full of really bright but warm people. But I think the first piece that you get is that what how how does this look and feel like other places I've been at? Right. Uh it's similar, but it's not the same. It's got levers that you pull to make things work, but they're not always the same levers. So, you do have to spend a bit of time really getting under the skin of the organization and getting to know who are the people who really make it work, who are the people who are in great positions but aren't necessarily the people who make it work. And that takes a little bit of time. There's a lot of listening, a lot of questions, in fact, a huge amount of questions. And I think that's true any senior roles.
Yes. And you were before Ingram Total, right? So, you've been there for 15 years. Yes. Quite a long time. So, it's not a kind of a very easy or simple switch because you inherited, I mean, suppose a lot of great things about the previous company, the previous role. Now, what I'm interesting is how can you create credibility and trust in a new environment, especially with such a large company where so many people and as we all know, especially in my work with CEOs, it's so important to while you are still learning the company, but it's is equally important to start creating the level of trust and credibility that you need as CEO then to lead powerfully in your role. What was your experience of creating the level of trust and credibility at the beginning?
I You're absolutely right. Trust is crucial to enable you to do the job, and trust is earned. It's not given. You have to showcase that you've got something to offer. Yes. But also say that you're making an effort to really understand how the organization ticks. So, as I said, it wasn't the same as places I'd been in before, but it was similar. So, I sort of knew I knew the industry very well. I've worked in this industry for a really long time. Uh but also there are very big differences between different organizations, some slightly different values and different behaviors. But the key for me was to actually get to meet people. And when you're looking at something globally, meeting people isn't that straightforward. Exactly. We weren't long out of COVID. Getting together was a little bit more difficult than it had been. Of course. And so, I was really keen to meet as many people as I could. So, we still used things like Teams and Zoom calls to get some connection, but physically meeting people was hugely important so you could make that connection. And obviously in many cultures, that face-to-face connection is even more important. Yes. So, I made sure I got to see a lot of people in a short period of time. I got to genuinely meet them, spend time with them, see how they worked, but also just made sure that I'd got some way of connecting. And it always helps if you have a few quick wins. It's good to be able to showcase.
there. Yeah, I've I've come in. I want to make some changes. I want to do some things with you, but you need to be showcased that you're actually able to deliver. So, it was always helpful to have a few things we could go, 'Look, I can do these things. I can help you get even better.' Cuz they were pretty good when I came in anyway, but here's some things I can help you with. And such a great strategy, by the way. In my work, I also experienced that, and I, you know, advise clients to always looking at what are two or three early wins that you can create. They are specific, but most importantly impactful, and they can be delivered in such a short period of time. So, you can demonstrate that, you know, you are there and you're already making an impact. You're not just learning, right? By the way, one question that many many CEOs ask me, especially in the first 90 days, if you still remember those days. I'm sure it's such a long time ago now in your mind. Is should I make big big decisions, or should I just look in these two or three simple, which are never never simple in such a large organization. So, you know, I can create a level of traction impact straight away. Or do I really need to make big decision cuz people are now already looking at me. They have a big expectations. Probably the board, probably, you know, people on top of you. What was your kind of a balance between big decision and simple but impactful decision?
Ah, it's a great question. I obviously, like everybody, I had a 90-day plan, which I think I wrote up three times over the 90 days and and try to improve on it. Cuz you think you know what you're going to do, and then you realize that some things come winging in that you have to deal with. Yes. I think it was a mixture. I was very very clear I didn't want to change the strategy from day one. That felt like the wrong time to do it. You have to know an organization. And everyone can create a strategy, but can you execute on it? And I needed to be sure we could execute on certain things. So, I deliberately pushed that back and I got quite a bit of pressure to move quicker on that, but I really pushed back on that to say, 'You know, if I do something now, I think we're going to regret it in a year's time. We need to actually be sure this is a good direction for us.' But luckily, there were quite a few smaller things that I could do to showcase we were moving. We had some momentum going and also began to build a bit of a sense of here's some energy, here's something that we can look to do. But I think doing something massive in your first 90 days, unless there's a catastrophe and you have to take action.
In crisis. Or actually, just an unbelievable opportunity crops up.
Of course. Um so, those two extremes, but those don't happen all that often. And I think you need a little bit of a bit of mud on the tires before you do something really big. I agree. And the risk of making a bad decision is is very high and likewise the implication of that clearly is equally strong. Now, last question about you really, uh Francesca. I mean, you have an interesting background because you told me the you know, your career really has spanned between audit, tax, advisory, legal, risk, HR. This is quite an unusual wide range.
Uh was that intentional or did it happen to you?
Um a tiny bit of both. When I started off in accountancy, it was quite traditional to move between different service lines.
Which interestingly is something that's coming back now cuz it's quite hard to organize, but it's an amazing foundation. And you might find a home for you. As it happened, by by doing that, I realized I wanted to work in tax, which I wouldn't have chosen at the outset. Uh so, that was very interesting. But then, um when I got to work in a global role, you actually have quite a small team. So, you've got to take on responsibility for a number of areas, and I got the chance to do a whole bunch of different things. But, I think what's great about that is you begin to see how the dots join up. And in networks, it's all about joining up the dots. Things can feel very fragmented. You've got lots of different countries doing lots of different things. How you can get that sense of that you are part of a whole. It does help to have an understanding of a broad range of areas. Which ultimately, I believe, is really the role of a CEO, right? Becoming an orchestrator, also be able to connect the dots and looking and thinking systemically versus looking, you know, in through separation or through silos, right?
You are a conductor. You do need to bring those pieces together. Fortuitously, you don't need to know huge depth about all of those areas, but you need to know enough to know how they fit together. Which I suspect that very wide and broad experience that you had before becoming a CEO probably became very useful.
Hugely helpful cuz you you know the language, you know some of the different behaviors you get in different areas. You know the things that probably drive the individuals, which are quite different to an advisory to say audit, very different parts of the same organization. And that has been incredibly helpful.
Yeah, I'm sure about that. Great. So, going back to the major topic of this conversation. So, about change. Um in our conversation when, you know, before getting to the recording, you said something that really stuck with me, you know, that this isn't change the way it was 10 or even 15 years ago. This is change at pace that we've never experienced. So, what does that actually look like from your seat as a CEO?
I think there is there's been change forever. Everyone's used to having change. I was thinking about this the other day and my parents would have gone through times of enormous change. They were post-war parents. My grandparents were in the middle of a war. Huge change, enormous change and some very big things happening. But today, it's about things coming along that perhaps there is no road map for. I think technology is the obvious one that everyone kind of can relate to cuz they go, 'Well, I've seen during my time going from typewriters to the pool through to everybody doing everything on their phone through to the advent of AI which is growing at a pace that I think most of us are just mind-blown by.' So, I think that that speed but what it means for a CEO is you're having to make focused intentional decisions on incomplete information. And that incomplete information is never going to be complete because things are moving so quickly. And that means that you're in a different place to maybe a CEO 10 years ago. Uh and that means you're going to also have to accept the fact that sometimes you're going to make it some wrong decisions but learn from them and move on from them because the carpet beneath our feet is slowly being pulled out from under us in some of these areas and it is hard to really know exactly what's going to happen in 3 years time or 5 years time. You can make very good guesses. You can make very good decisions but you won't always going to get it right.
totally saying saying it resonates with me and my my experience. But how you prepare your organization for that? By the way, I'm interested in primarily from a mindset standpoint cuz to me there is a specific type of mindset if you like or perspective people should have or should embody or embrace. You don't need to be ready to cope with all the changes that happening at that pace. And to me it's primarily related to clearly flexibility but also the ability to lead with ambiguity. To be able to stay on course while things changing but then able to pivot it, you know, quite fast sometimes. And also, um, I would say resilience. Be able to, you know, bounce back every single time that you need to make something different change. Now, I have a suspicion in a very traditional, which is not by the way big a tele, but I would say for most people thinking, you know, a professional service industry, they're quite reluctant sometimes to those change cuz they've done work or business in a particular way for many many years. What's your experience of leading that change in an organization?
I I think your description is really right. In a coaching terminology, you'd call it a fixed mindset compared to a growth mindset. But it is really about I've always done it this way, so I'm always going to do it that way, and this is always going to be the right way. That is very rarely going to be true in the world we live in today. A growth mindset is much more open. It doesn't pretend to know everything, and it doesn't pretend to have an ability to do everything, but at least it has a curiosity. So going back to the tech example, you might not become the world's greatest user of AI. You may not be the person who's utterly brilliant at every prompt, able to maximize its potential, but if you're not tech curious, that's a bit of an issue. So you do need to have that curiosity, that willingness to try, that ability to understand that things are changing, and then use the skills and knowledge and people around you to help fill the gaps that you've got. And that's a growth mindset. Open to things, curious about things, looking ahead, not not understanding every single little thing that's going to happen to you, but having the ability to be able to look at it with fresh eyes. And I think your resilience point is incredibly important. You do need a huge amount of resilience in any business. Doesn't matter its size or its scale, some things are it to go wrong. They just are. And how you bounce back from that, how you react to that, is really, really important.
Yeah, I know. I agree. Now, at a scale of a company of 50,000 people in the network, how they is possible? I mean, I clearly you know, I work with with organizations, with CEOs and their leadership teams on shifting their own mindset first and then before shifting the mindset of the entire organization. But it's not a quick thing. It's not a quick fix. And also is something that it really is different people by people because, you know, everybody is driven by his own set of values, education, experiences and have a very huge implication in terms of how they are able to cope with change. Yeah. Now, people that are very positive, right? And they can see change and they can really ride on say, 'Great, that is a great opportunity for me and for us.' Others, you know, they step back and say, 'Well, I don't know whether I can do it or not.' How easy? By the way, I know it's not easy. [laughter] How How can you make it possible? How can you make it possible in large organizations?
And change is very difficult. I mean, it's it is just a hard thing to do because you've got some natural um sense that I actually don't really want to change. I go I like the way it is. Or or actually, that change is a bit scary or I have no idea what that change really means. Uh I I need to understand. So, there's a huge communication piece on that. And as you say, in an ideal world, you take every individual person and you'd have the conversation and you'd take them through it and and work with their own sort of personal preferences. That's just not viable. You can't do that. So, you just have to use different communication channels. So, for example, last week we launched a new global strategy. So, you know, we do a big webin- webinar. Anyone in the in the organization can access that. We record it. So, that's lovely. So, that's a start. But how many people are actually going to look at that and really take it in? You know, you get a you get a percentage. You get the keen people. Uh and then you've got to do so much more. You've got to communicate it in different ways. You have to break it down. You have to repeat it. Strategy in itself is all about repetition. It's about executing on the things that really need executing on. And I remember talking to some wonderful person many years ago who said when people start repeating your strategy back to you, you know you've got there. Yeah, when they've when they're not doing that, you haven't landed it. And you've got to get kind of boring about it. You've got to really really keep repeating it, keep explaining it, keep using different methods, visual, audio, whatever you have at your disposal. Because most people to change, they need something to make them want to change. Could be a burning platform. Oh my goodness, we've got to do something differently. But if there isn't a burning platform, there's just a promise of a better land, that actually does need people to appreciate why why should I do something? I think my boss should do something or I think my manager should do something. But me, not so sure I want to be the person doing that. So what's in it for them? You do need to give the rationale, the understanding, the appreciation that is going to be helpful to them. It might give them a more opportunity, it might give them greater ways to develop their potential. It might just make their job more interesting. All these things are really important and you you have to spend a lot of time doing that to make it effective.
Yeah. So fully endorse what you said. Um from me there are two things that stood out from what you said. One is you need to create a compelling why for people to embrace something different. In the compelling why or compelling future, if it's not in place, it will be essentially a reason for people to not do anything different because they don't know why that is happening. So I think you are definitely uh on the right point. And then not for today, but you know sometimes, at least in my experience, the ability for leaders to create a compelling why is not that strong, meaning sometimes it's really just the same old same old, but just packaged differently.
Yeah. Or it's just an incremental game that might not be necessary enough for people to see something like a new possibility in front of them. So, it has to be strong enough, bold enough, compelling enough.
The other thing is that you said, and I think that is also important. Um people they need to realize that something is for them. So, they have a role to play inside of that. And to me, that is important. And finally, I mean, let's be very clear on this. You said sometimes as a CEOs, we're going to be quite, you know, boring in keep repeating the same message. But I am I'm with you. Actually, the quality of change or any any transformation you want to the organization is the consistency between who you are, first of all, and your message, what you say, and that repeatedly, how you show up in a way that's consistent with the message. So, I just want to appreciate what you said cuz that definitely resonates with me. And I think your piece about showing up in the same way that you're talking is in walking the talk. It's it's huge. Because if you say, 'Hey, we've really got to become much more tech enabled.' And and you have absolutely no understanding of anything that's related to tech, you're not a great role model. Yes. Um equally, if you've if you're trying to stress some behaviors and you're not exhibiting them yourself, that's a really hard sell. And people see through that. And they go, 'Well, they're not doing it. So, why should I do it?' And I think that is a massive part of that whole change program. And and some bits of change happen fast. Mhm. Some bits of change are a much slower burn.
Yes. But you do need to make sure you're on that track that all things moving along. As you look back at your own strategies and things that are working and not working, you have to keep rethinking. Have I Have we not landed this for a particular reason? Or has this actually landed really well? Can we do more of that? Exactly.
We're off and away. Yeah, it's such a great point. Great. So, I'd like to move a little bit more to although it's related, you know, to the fact that, you know, you are in the knowledge-based industry, the way I always say. So, your product essentially is what your people know. And I know that because I come from the background that's also I do. You know, we are the product as people. You know, we don't have necessarily a specific product that we sell per se. But AI is now commoditizing knowledge at scale. So, it's easy to get knowledge from AI. Do you feel like there is a risk for a professional service company to become a commodity? I'm sure, you know, large organization reputable like Baker Tilly, it will never be a case. So, it's just a provoking question. But what do you think is going to be the role of AI for people that are selling or that are offering knowledge to the market?
Oh, no, it's it's a huge question in all knowledge-based industries. It's if you can get access to information quickly, what's the value you're getting from the advisor, the that's the person. And And And at the moment, I think there's a very strong fusion between humanity and AI. You You can see how AI can be very good at getting you the facts, very good at getting you the research, but how you articulate it, how you talk to somebody, how you share that, how you check it, because that's a huge part of it. And how you can use that to drive value, there's still a very, very strong role for humans within that piece. But it's going to keep on developing. So, the role of an individual within that it is is definitely beginning to shift. So, there's a lot of positives in this. There's a lot of routine jobs that actually it's wonderful to have technology that can do it quicker, faster, um potentially even more effectively. If there's still space for the humanity piece to take that information and make it more valuable for the individual. And I think that's that's a really important part of our industry is how you give the value from it. But also about how you can harness it to do a job more efficiently for a client, how you can harness it to help people get somewhere quicker. Because in the old days, um, say even in the field of tax, you might have done 300, 400 tax returns before you'd really gone, 'Yay, now I am a super, super, super tax preparer.' Well, that that's not the world we're in today. You can get there quicker by using tech to help enable you. And actually that opens up a different door because then that individual is able to do other things, able to have other opportunities. That there's a really interesting debate about how much do you have to do to enable you to get to the next stage. And a lot of discussion about actually some of that basic learning gives you the foundation blocks to take you to the next stage. So there's a lot of thought about how you can encapsulate those foundation stones but in a slightly different way. And I think we're really learning in that area at the moment.
Great. And on that, you know, I think you raise a question I found fascinating. Is it even about retaining people anymore or is it about creating an environment where you know they're probably not going to stay and making that work?
